Castle on the hill
by SharanMcQuack
Summary: "We" visit another Scottish castle, once owned by a relative of Mr. McDee, apparently haunted.


Castle on the Hill

By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.

One day, Launchpad flew Mr. McDuck and the Trins to Scotland. They were visiting the summer residence of an ancestor of Mr. McDuck's. For somebody who earned his fortune, Mr. McDuck has a lot of relatives who owned castles in Scotland.

Mr. McDuck's the only one who has managed to hold on to the money. That's the trouble with being rich, it's very precarious.

Mr. McDuck spoke of how his Uncle Gummmo was notorious practical joker who drove everybody nuts with his mean, nasty practical jokes so everybody avoided him and his castle like the plague.

'Why are we here, Uncle Scrooge?" Huey asked.

"We're here to clear out the castle. Uncle Gummo died leaving debts. The castle has more than one mortgage on it. We're going thur the castle and do inventory on his contents. I'll sell some of the contents and use the money to keep the castle itself in the family." Mr. McDuck said.

Our heroes split up and searched the castle, and brought stuff to the main room. Mr. McDuck examined all the items and separated it into piles: to be sold, sentimental value and worthless junk.

"We'll have a flea market to sell the worthless junk." Mr. McDuck muttered. "There's so much of it and people are such suckers for a bargain, I may make a profit on the flea market alone!"

Our heroes kept running into the practical jokes the late Gummo McDuck left behide. Itching powder, fake-snakes-in-a-can, hidden chutes they slide down, that sort of thing. Nobody got hurt, but everybody had a bellyful of the dumb unfunny jokes.

Even Launchpad's patience was strained. Launchpad found excuses to tour the outside of the castle, looking for statues, out buildings, that sort of thing. But even outside, the practical jokes were hidden, waiting for an unsuspecting victim. Especially near the lake!

_()()Weird. Nice little lake, right on the property, but no boats, no dock, no paths leading down to it.()(_) Launchpad thought. _()() And all these weeds around it! You can't get close to it without running into briars and prickles! Why do you suppose it's so overgrown!The rest of the property isn't any place that overgrown!()()_

Since he wasn't succeeding in avoiding the traps by avoiding the castle, Launchpad headed back to the castle.

"Where have you been? Dodging work?" Mr. McDuck demanded.

"I've been searching the grounds. There are several nice statues, a few small buildings- a gate house, some sort of hunting cottage and large shed/barn the size of a house. I drew a map showing everything that looks valuable." Launchpad replied.

Launchpad handed Mr. McDuck the map.

"Why did you indicate a bunch of dumb rocks?" Mr. McDuck demanded, examining the map.

"Because people buy rocks for their gardens and for walls! And I think some of them are marble or granite, which are getting more valuable now that their getting a little scarce!" Launchpad explained.

There was a great deal of work to do and Mr. McDuck wanted to have his flea market tomorrow. So everybody slept at the castle. Until the ghosts woke them. In the middle of the night, our heroes heard moaning, groaning, sighing, whispering...all kinds of spooky noises.

Launchpad actually slept thur most of it. He was sleeping in a nice, comfy bed high up in the castle and fell asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. Clean conscience, The racket was going on on the ground floor, where Mr. McDuck and the Trins were sleeping.

White clad figures floated into their rooms, moaning and groaning.

"Go home! Don't come back! This is our place!" the "ghosts " said.

The Trins, startled, screamed. Hey, they're ten years old. They were sound asleep. Then, they heard scary noises they tried to ignore, figuring that old castles make noise.

They had managed to convince themselves the noises they heard was wind seeping into the castle, old creaking boards, that kind of harmless thing you only hear at night when it's quiet and the other noises that normally drown out lesser noise are gone and you feel vulnerable because it's dark and you're trying to sleep. THEN, the "ghosts " came into their room. So forgive them for screaming.

Especially since two seconds later, the three of them they charged the "ghosts", to find the "ghosts" were bedsheets draped over helium balloons. A half-second, Mr. McDuck and Launchpad came running down to see what was wrong.

"What happened?" Mr. McDuck and Launchpad asked.

"Somebody trying to scare us! A couple of fake ghosts came into our room, after making spooky noises! Look up and you're see the helium balloons on the ceiling. Look on the floor, there are the sheets that were draped over them to make ghosts." the Trins chimed.

"But how did they get here? Somebody had to set this up!" Launchpad asked.

"So you don't think this could be a real ghost?" Mr. McDuck inquired, sarcastically.

"Ghosts don't use balloons and bedsheets! Somebody's trying to scare us!" Launchpad replied.

"WHY? There's nothing here of unusual value! We've searched the whole place." Huey asked.

"And if there was something valuable here, wouldn't of Uncle Gummo sold it to pay off the mortgage?" Dewey asked.

"Maybe it wasn't worth anything THEN? Some of the stuff we found here is only valuable because it's OLD." Louie added.

"That's true. And the "stuff" we found was Uncle Gummo's furniture, paintings...selling it would left Gummo living in an empty house." Mr. McDuck put in.

"Could the land be worth something? I noticed the land around the lake is overgrown...' Launchpad asked.

"Pff. Uncle Gummo was an odd duck. He didn't like water. So he let the lake get overgrown. No, the land is worthless...not that it matters, Uncle Gummo only owned the castle, not the land it stands on. And the castle has several mortgages on it, so the bank really owns it." Mr. McDuck replied.

"Unca Scrooge, there's mud on this "ghost's" bed sheet!" Huey said.

"And there are briars and burrs on this one!" Dewey said.

"And this one's wet and it smells of fish!" Louie said.

"And the lake is surrounded by briers and burrs, has mud near it and probably has fish in it!" Launchpad said.

"The lake WOULD be a good place to hide if Unca Gummo never went there." Huey said.

So we went to the lake and started searching for anything strange. It wasn't easy, there were plenty of briers and brambles surrounding the lake. There was no way to avoid it, so we had to wade thur them. This was easier for Launchpad and me than the rest.

"A GIRL has the sense to wear pants on these trips and you guys DON'T!" Launchpad joked.

"Their lack of shoes must be hurting their feet right now, too!" I added.

"Ouch!" "Ouch!" Ouch!" They replied as they kept stepping on thorns.

"Hey! Somebody ELSE has come this way! Look!" Huey said, pointing.

"There are footprints here! Somebody's came this way wearing "thorn shoes". Dewey said.

"Nobody is supposed to be living here!" Mr. McDuck said. "Trespassers!"

"The footprints head towards the lake!" Louie said.

We made our way SLOWLY towards the lake.

"Hey! There's a path...right here in the middle of all this overgrowth, there's a path." Launchpad said, stopping his foot in mid stride, just before putting it down on the path.

"It's GOT to be a trap!" Mr. McDuck snapped.

"Maybe we should take it anyway? Could the traps be worse than all these briers and brambles if we're careful?" I asked.

And I grabbed up a long stick and started tapping the path in front of me, like a blind person. The others followed suit, except Mr. McDuck used his cane.

We went along for awhile, until Launchpad stopped us.

"Wait! We're being snookered! This path is veering AWAY from the lake! I'm tall enough to tell!" Launchpad said.

The rest of us could not see clearly above all the undergrowth.

"Great. Back to the briers and brambles." Huey said.

"Mr. McD...a lot of this undergrowth is wet or damp, but some is dead and dry. If I set a brand on fire, I might blaze a trail. " Launchpad suggested.

"If it were just the two of us here, I might take the chance. With the kids and your wife here, it's too risky." Mr. McDuck replied.

Webby had sat down on the path to rest a minute.

"Unca Scrooge- there's a hole hidden here in the undergrowth." Webby said.

"Good work, Webby! I'd never see that hole down there!" Launchpad said.

Webby and the boys were the only ones low enough to the ground to see the hidden hole.

Webby stuck her stick into the hole and SNAP! a trap cut the stick in two.

"Why hide the hole AND booby trap it?" Dewey asked.

There's more than one hole!" Louie said.

"There's a whole bunch of holes!" Huey said.

"Somebody doesn't want us investigating these holes. That's why they are hidden AND nastily booby-trapped. So let's investigate them- carefully." Mr. McDuck said.

So we poked sticks into the holes, and triggered off booby traps. Most of the holes dead-ended soon after the trap. ONE hole proved to be a tunnel that went underground. We started down the tunnel. Except for Launchpad.

"WELL? Come on!" Mr. McDuck asked Launchpad.

"HOW? I'm too big!" Launchpad lamented.

I realized the tunnel was too narrow for Launchpad to fit.

"Maybe it's just as well. I'll continue thur the briers and brambles. Maybe we can surround whoever is behide this by separating. I don't like narrow passageways, anyway." Launchpad said.

"I'll go with you. Whither thou goeses, so goeses I." I said, making it clear I was NOT taking no for an answer.

"OK." Launchpad said, and he kissed me.

We made our way thur the undergrowth.

"I suppose it could be worse." i said.

"HOW?" Launchpad asked.

"Poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac." I replied.

After a while, we blundered onto a small stream that "fed" the lake.

"Let's wade in it." I said.

"I go first. We're not sure how deep it is and I'm taller than you." Launchpad said.(1)

And Launchpad went in front of me, and helped me along. The stream was narrow and shallow, you could only find it by luck as we did. So it wasn't booby trapped.

We waded thru the stream until we reached the lake it "fed". Along the lakeshore we saw robed figures planting seedlings and tending trees.

"Druids! Mr. McDee told me there were still some druids in Scotland!" (2)Launchpad whispered."But why are they here and what are they up to?"

We watched the druids for awhile. We followed them and they went into another hidden tunnel, this one big enough for Launchpad to use. We quietly followed the druids down the tunnel.

We finally came to an underground lake that was obliviously connected to the above ground lake. It was HUGE.

"It's sort of like an hourglass- the above ground lake is connected to this underground lake by a "neck", only the underground lake is much bigger, and there's more than one neck!" Launchpad said.

We sneaked closer. The druids were casting tree branches they had pruned from the trees into the lake. Then UP from the water came...

"A Loch Ness Monster?" Launchpad asked.

"This ISN'T Loch NESS, fool!" snapped Mr. McDuck as he and the kids came around from the other side.

The druids heard him. It would have been hard for them not to.

"It's a dinosaur!" Huey said. (3)

"A Plesiosaurus, I think." Louie added.

"Aren't they bigger than it?" Dewey asked.

"Maybe like crocs they don't grow as big as they used to?" I asked. "Or maybe it's a different species."

"So now you know. You are Scrooge McDuck?" the Top Druid asked. "Your ancestor, Gummo knew how we protect these creatures, older and taller than the trees. He helped us by planting briers and brambles around the lake. And his practical jokes made people avoid this place."

"I suppose you're going to insist on making money exploiting these creatures." the Top Druid said.

"No, I intend to make money hiding these creatures. Hiding them so well no one will suspect they are here." Mr. McDuck replied.

And soon, Mr. McDuck opened a amusement park starring fake Loch Monsters. He had built some highly realistic fakes and made a fuss about doing so. People came in swarms to see the fakes and have fun. And if a REAL Loch Monster poked his or her head up, everybody thought it was just another fake.

"Protective camouflage. Nobody would think of looking for real loch monsters among fake Loch Monsters." Mr. McDuck said.

The End.

(1)My Grandpa Lybus and my Grandma Sara were the long and the short of it, too.

(2) This story was a rewrite of the Ducktales episode "Curse of the Castle McDuck."

(3) "Loch Ness" Is the name of that movie I swiped this idea from?


End file.
